I used to think that, until I demoed a Gerringhoff Razor for 150 ac. Saturday. It had the air nozzles just behind the rock guard bolts and blew beans on to the belt. I wanted to see if the draper increased yield. I always thought my Lexion Maxflex did a good job until I was in 9% beans or down beans when I had to speed up the reel. So I wanted to compare the 2 as equally as possible so I would do 4 rounds skipping every other pass for the other head to harvest.
I found a consistent 3.5 to 4.5 bu increase with the draper. My speeds were 3.5 for the auger head and up to 6mph for the draper. The biggest thing I noticed was no beans hitting the windshield and the engine load was 30-40% less. The engine load was always 80-95% with the auger and 50-55% engine load for draper which led me to discover how much better the chopper spread pattern was. You could tell which pass was made by which header!!
The three section head flexibility and the way the sensors worked. The hydraulic outboard wheels would follow terrain and keep the flexing cutter bar flex range and you could shave across the washouts without hitting any dirt with the rock guards at reasonable speeds. The ability to flex over terraces was amazing.  I have never have had a flex cutter bar that would follow a contour of the ground without getting into the dirt with the rock guards while shaving the ground. 


Smoke